Remember Our Promise?
by Kenneth Black
Summary: A promise had been made, binding them both. Several decade later, it binds them again to seal the love they were now acting upon.


A/N: Seeing you cry makes me cry too, but on some days, seeing you cry makes me laugh like there's no tomorrow. Thank you for trusting me enough to let me see you cry. ^^

DISCLAIMER: I'd say it was common sense to know I don't own these wonderful characters kind enough (or bored enough, eh, Hitsugaya?) to drop by and participate in this li'l scene about to play out. Okay, on and blast off with the story!

PS: (psst!) Sorry if you don't support these two or are kinda offended- 'course, you wouldn't really be surfin' 'round here anyway ^^ (that's what that toolbar thing does for you to choose your characters and what they're doing) -okay, why Matsumoto and Hitsugaya? They're the only two I saw together all the time! / -.-; I missed out on his childhood friend somewhere in watching/reading the manga/anime. So... me is hooked (I'm more on spiritual ((haha, get it?)) connections anyway). ^^ Enjoy

**Remember Our Promise?**

_"Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuun!" Hitsugaya frowned in annoyance under the safety of his hat, sweaty red face clearing before he straightened from his bend over the old lawn mower now on its last leg. _

_"What is it, Matsumoto?" Blue eyes flashed in amusement as the big-chested girl laid hands on hips, a frown of her own playfully gracing her features. _

_"I'm worried about you, Toushi-kun. Did you ever think about leaving ol' granny here before you freeze her to death and die of shame for not listening to me?"_

_Even the silver-haired ice wielder could hear the sense, and irony, coating the teasing lilt of his bumped-into friend. It was a half year later when the orange-haired girl defended him, her bored eyes hardening at the disrepect and fear coating the man's refusal to sell Toushiro some bread. It had been a fun half year. _

_Matsumoto had stood tall and supportive, showing him the way to goad Hyourinmaru into anger, then befriending the mighty dragon with powerful loyalty for his master. A little wild and lonely himself, Hyourinmaru was still a babe dragon. It had been so much fun teasing him, letting her own zanpak-tou mingle with the 'icy one'._

_"Look, Matsumoto, I'm not going to let Granny die. Just... give me a minute, okay? Give me time to... gather myself. I've decided... I'll go with you. Just... wait for me. 'Til I'm ready. I promise you I'll then take you to Seiretei and buy you all the affection a woman could want. Ever. And I'll never leave your side."_

_Matsumoto had smiled, almost sad, a glint of moisture in her eyes. Then, it was gone. _

_"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYY! Toushi-kun's coming, Toushi-kun's coming!"_

_And the hyper woman had run off, waving all her limbs and cleavage for all she was worth. Tomorrow, Toushiro told his Grandma he was leaving, to settle matters with his own self and become stronger. Matsumoto had stood by his side, gentle and firm, all assuring, in a soft voice, Granny would see Hitsugaya again._

_His Granny died the next year._

"TAICHO! I'm HEEEEEEEERE!"

Hitsugaya swiveled his head to glare in annoyance at the bouncy beautiful woman slathering herself all seductive-like in the doorway.

This was lost on him.

Yeah, he noticed. Him and every other breathing person alive. But over several decades spent with his fukutaichou, Hitsugaya deemed himself SO over the dimple-lipped woman. Especially since she was the one who was so close to him all the time. Yeah, over time, things got... natural.

He enjoyed her company, he enjoyed her scent. He enjoyed her presence, he enjoyed the way she looked at him with affection. Brother affection. Hitsugaya sighed and leaned back in his chair, beckoning her over.

Matsumoto slinked over to him, an obvious purr in her voice.

"Somethin' wrong, Taichou? I can... help."

Oh, great. Need he mention the way she acted when she got drunk? Hitsugaya rolled his eyes and beckoned her closer, pushing away from his desk and all the annoying paper that came with the status of captain. Even over the decades of growing, he was still a kid inside, hating paperwork with a disguised passion.

"Yessss, Taichou?"

The icy-eyed captain leaned over and grabbed the woman's wrist, effecticely pulling her into his lap. At her sweet honey giggle, he snorted.

"You're not even drunk, are you?"

Only he could tell the way she was truly drunk, only he could see the way she shifted when she was worried, confused, and oh-so-cutely trying to lie.

"Hehehehe, 'course I'm drunk Taichou, 'COURSE I'm drunk.."

Hitsugaya let out a little chuckle.

"Uh-huh, SURE you are, Matusmoto. Y'know, when you're drunk..."

The captain leaned closer to the one he was holding tightly, shifting her so her body angled fit over his, not even blinking at the way she was starting to shift on him. Yes, he knew her well. So well, he was even aware of her breathing pattern, the way she started to hold in her breath just like she was when she was going to sneeze...

"you lather beer right into your sandals."

Matsumoto jerked back, a high squeal filling the room. Hitsugaya laughed low and deep and kept her from falling to the floor, scrambling away, kept her right there in his lap. Yes, right there...

Everything went rigid. Literally.

Eyes wide, Hitsugaya let go of a squealing Matsumoto and shunpo-d out from under her, leaving her bumbling onto the floor in an undignified heap of woman.

Woman.

Matsumoto.

"G-GO AWAY!"

And Hitsugaya ran right out of the room, his captain's robe left behind in a grinning Matsumoto's hands. Surprise was hers, yes, when something poked into her butt, but she was secretly pleased.

Closing her eyes, Matsumoto ran her hands over the lethal jaw of the Toushiro she saw in her mind, the rugged way he held himself, the hot way only he could be, even in his throne of ice. Yes, she was interested. And yes...

"My little Toushi-kun's growing up."

BakaBakaBakaBakaBakaBakaBaka-

"Wh-Wh-What the HELL was I doing?" Toushiro Hitsugaya, captain, self-respecting adult, man, and most more, HUMAN, in technical terms, MALE, was staring in horror at the feeling emanating from his lap. Or, more directly, RIGHT THERE.

"Oh, nononononononono!" Moaning in loss at the feel of his fukutaicho against him, Toushiro whapped a hand at his lap.

And squeezed.

What the HELL was happening to him?

It had been a full seven decades since the last time he felt an interest for a woman, and not even THEN had it been Matsumoto. Not even THEN had he acted on the feeling. And seven decades later, FULLY well leaving his teens behind, he'd ACTED on that feeling?

What was happening to him-?

"PLEASE, no..."

Hitsugaya bent to his knees and fell, landing on the soft grass outside the outskirts of Seiretei. There was a full moon out, and stars glistened in the night sky, bright and revealing to the world of humans, connecting them through an ever-enveloping blanket of carressing darkness.

This was a matter between himself, and himself alone.

He would never, COULD never tell anyone about this at all, no one, NO ONE about this feeling, the certain elation he'd found within himself when he had the chance to look Matsumoto in the eyes and smiled.

Only with her did she know him as himself. Only with her did she bring out the best in him, the child that had hidden away under the harsh demands of captain. Only with her-

_Okay, Hitsugaya, got it, only with HER._

Damn. Toushiro had thought Hyourinmaru was off in dreamland with some other hot ice dragon and was keeping himself preoccupied.

"I-I, uh..."

_Yeah, got it, ice-boy. You've got a live one, and a keeper. Didn't I tell you ten thousand years ago you shoulda gave her a chance? _

Hitsugaya frowned, his attention jerking to the low throb in his black robes, the damned thing becoming a nuisance. Any man who knew these thoughts right now would laugh him to his grave.

"I didn't want to bind her to me, I was an outcast, I needed to prove myself..."

_You've proved it. By far, you sure as heck proved it._

Hitsugaya blushed an angry red and flopped onto his back, trying to ignore the blasted stick poking up from under him. How was he going to sleep, he could only sleep on his tummy-

_Hey, ice-king of the midgets._

Hitsugaya grunted in return, slapping a hand on top of Hyourinmaru and his tip. THAT should shut his partner up, the ever-nose-poking zanpak-tou a GREAT help in his love and lust life. Like he even had a libido. Back at the subject at hand...

_She's a good friend, that's why you don't want to lose her, huh?_

Silence.

"Yeah."

_Okay. I'll leave you to your thoughts._

"Yeah."

Silence. He was alone. He was so alone, he was getting tired of being alone, he needed someone to hold him...

_And git rid of that thing, it's poking my ear!_

Oi. He was SO not alone.

"Oh, Taaaaaaaaaaichou..."

Matsumoto grinned at the sight before her. Lying on his side, eyes closed, Hitsugaya murmured soft whimpering noises in his sleep. An hour ago, she'd watched him converse with Hyourinmaru, about laughing when the dragon complained of having his hearing destroyed. That zanpak-tou was sure good with words.

Tip-toeing ever closer, Matsumoto knelt near the king, shivering in chill. He was such a cool person...

"I-I.. Ah..! Ma-Matsumoto!"

Matsumoto blinked. And grinned. And grinned some more when, several minutes later, her taichou had let go of the restaints he placed on himself and went to the pool in his very own dreams.

Wow, how Matsumoto wished she could join him right now...

And why not?

Chuckling to herself at her clever idea, Matsumoto lowered herself spread-eagle over the sleeping silver-haired cutie. He'd turned into masculine buffness over the years, then hot stuff that melted his ice demeanor. Only in front of her, though.

Lowering herself a bit more, Matsumoto let the stands of her hair slip down over her shoulders and onto his face. His reaction was immediate. Icy blue eyes snapped open, and before she could blink, he'd scooted like a crab out from underneath her and gaped, mouth open, at her own lips puckered out for a kiss.

"Wh-Wh-What? I-I was sleeping, and, and-"

"I harrassed you in a very friendly manner, oh, taichou, I'm SO sorry. Maybe... punishments should be dealt out with a... fair hand?"

She soon had him blushing like crazy. Ooh, ammunition for the future when he was acting all high and cool in front of other people. Yeah, she'd use it in front of Ichigo. That straw-berry head wouldn't tease him so much, and Rukia was bound to get a laugh out of it...

"I-I should, huh?"

Matsumoto blinked. What?

"Oh, my Kami-sama..." She upside-down crab/power-walked to her little captain and pressed her forehead to his, staring him directly in the eyes. Her hands dug into her shoulders, and in a fierce snarl, she whined,

"What'dja do to my little Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun? Animal, OUT you BEAST, OUT, and when I'm-a gonna beat the artificial soul outta you, I'm gonna feed you to the gutter-wenches down under the sea..! So get OUTTA my Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuun!"

Toushiro was never so surprised in his life.

"I-I AM Toushiro."

"Who in the seven Hells modified you to DARE use that beloved name, HUH, punk? I'll beat you blood-less!"

Hitsugaya stared at his suddenly-demented fukutaichou. She thought HE was possessed by an artificial soul that wanted to make her his own? Heh, he was going to have fun.

A bubble popped over his head. 'Oh, look guys, last night my fukutaichou woke me up right above me, all sexy and hot, when I try to get away from her. Seducing me, I respond, and when I do, she BLOWS up and goes berserk, saying I'm outta character! How's that for an April Fool's joke?'

Yeah, that's go well with the guys.

"I-I'm me, Matsumoto. I'm Toushi-kun." Eyes widened in terror when she held him arms-lenths away, then demanded,

"Tell me how I said it when we first met."

"I-I can't do tha- oh-ok... T-T-Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuun."

Hitsugaya died of shame right then and there. Popped out of his grave when he heard a denied, "Nope. Not even close."

"Damn it, Matsumoto, it IS Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun."

"Yes, it is."

"Then WHY?"

"You only said it for three seconds the first time. It's usually in between six or seven. But... YOU FAKE LITTLE HORN MONKEY, GET OUTTA TAICHOU'S BODY!"

Hitsugaya gasped when Matsumoto rubbed him hard against her, shaking him like crazy in wide circles around her. He STILL thought he was a fake-?

"Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuun would NEVER say that, he'd NEVER say it, he's too cool and hard and rugged and sexy, and he'd NEEEEEEEEEEEEVER say that damned stupid NICKNAME! And YOU, you're not even hot, sexy, rugged, or buff, either! SO GET OUT!"

Hitsugaya froze when all her confessions about him poured out. He was hot, sexy, buff, cold, ... hard..?

ZING!

"You- how DARE you use Taichou's BODY like that!"

Oops. Hyourinmaru's 'poker' was back. And apparently, Matsumoto didn't like it. Well, it was HIS body and he could BLOODY well USE it as he pleased.

Jerking away from the over-reacting woman, he shunpo-d behind her and wrapped her arms tight to her sides. Being tall now had its advantages. Picking her, kicking and screaming, up, he zoomed them over to the Kuchiki household. He needed a glove.

"B-But, Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuun, I'm SORRY, I thought it was a wierd mod soul..."

Hitsugaya glared hard at his fukutaichou and jerked his chin sharp at Rukia Kuchiki's wide eyes. DAMN, but he felt humiliated. Once he stepped foot inside the Kuchiki perimeter line, every blasted ninja had come out and Matsumoto had screamed,

"THIS ISN'T TAICHOU! IT'S A MOD SOUL, SO GET 'IM!"

And, of course, it was hell getting to Rukia's room. It was also hell to see (and smell) her underneath and shuffling covers with Ichigo 'Strawberry' Kurosaki. He wouldn't delve into that right now.

"Yes, Matsumoto, I'm me, Toushi-kuuuuuuuuun. Now, put me back inside my bod-aack!"

Matsumoto had turned around in his now-slack embrace and stuffed him back in his body, now squeezed tight and gurgling with foam at her big bear hug. Pulling sharply away, he opened his mouth, ready to yell down at her,-

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuun, I thought you didn't want me!"

*blink*

"Wh-What?"

_You heard the woman, she thought you didn't want to jump her like all the other drooling dogs in the area- OUCH!_

Both Hitsugaya and Matsumoto's fists finished THAT sentence.

"Wh-What do you mean, you thought I didn't want you-?"

"You didn't LOOK at me!"

Hitsugaya stared and did the one thing he most didn't want to do right now, especially with Rukia and a brow-furrowed Ichigo there.

He grabbed Matsumoto and hugged her.

Tight.

And whispered the promise he'd sworn to keep and had only now acted on, being the idiot he was and hurting too much about status and dignity to love her, really, truly, madly, deeply, so blasted much LOVE her.

Even though the promise was very much hers to give to him, he had to remind her, HAD to tell her the secret he harbored within himself that he lost long ago, but still had that faint glimmer of hope that only she could give.

Matsumoto then burst out into long held-in sobs. He didn't blame her. The way he'd been acting for the past how-many-who-knew decades of his life, all going around and trying to carve a way for himself and only allowing her the sight of him, as himself, at times where she'd die for a glimpse of him, he didn't blame her.

Not at all.

And he didn't care when he pulled Matsumoto up tighter to him and hushed her sobs with a kiss all his own.

"You know I love you."

"I do?"

"Yeah, of course."

"..."

"Didn't you?"

"..."

"..."

"Yeah, I did."

Ten million miles away from Seiretei and the rest of the world,

Rangiku Matsumoto and her captain Hitsugaya Toushiro cursed out Byakuya Kuchiki's name.

The man had taken one look at all his fallen guards outside the gate, one look at the intense liplock just now finished, and sighed. Heavily. Then he walked out, not a hair out of place. Just some friends over. Yup, just some frie-...nds.. over . .

Byakuya walked back in, took one look at his little sister's bed, at a petrified Ichigo, and whispered a low, black,

"**Die, scum**."

Ooooi, that man was pissed. And Ichigo hopped out of bed and dashed in front of a still-kissing taichou and his fukutaichou, the 'working' relationship all but a distant memory. Byakuya had drew his hands together, looking so cool he'd bypass Hyourinmaru if he didn't look like a witch that would cast a spell, and then. . .

Ichigo sprang out of the way and blue electricity hit both of them.

Byakuya must have aimed some lusty spell potion towards Ichigo, because as soon as it hit them, it made their skin crawl and their members as wet and hard as the ocean's sea and boulder's core.

It made them BURN.

Landing in a heap tangled in each other's arms, they panted through their orgasms and wondered if Byakuya had wanted Ichigo to BURST like that, out of sincere blood.

He'd have burst, all right.

They'd landed who-knew-where they certainly didn't, but on the soft grass and warm breeze, the tropicality of land bursting with fruit around them, Matsumoto and Hitsugaya didn't give a care in the world. In fact. . .

"Will you marry me, forever?"

Silence. Heavy and decisive.

"Matsumoto..?"

Still more silence. Then. . .

"HELL, I don't need you on your knee, and I bloody damned well have enough stories to tell our children when they ask how you courted me! "

Hitsugaya leaned back to where he'd fallen on his butt, looking up surprised at the towering woman over him, her stormy eyes looking dilated and big. So dilated, that...

"Y-You're aroused..?"

"Hell, yes, what gave you a HINT, Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuun?"

At that, his busty fukutaichou pounced on him, yelling to the heavens above, "**OF COURSE I'LL MARRY YOU, LOVE YOU, HAVE YOUR BABIES, AND COMMIT MYSELF TO YOU AND EVER YOU!"**

Hitsugaya squirmed and tried to breathe under his new soon-to-be wife's loving form, laughing like he hadn't laughed in a long time.

He loved this woman, he loved her so much, he wanted to love her 'till the day she died and went to heaven with him-

_Dammit, icepick, TELL her already!_

Oh, Hyourinmaru, what a ladies' man. Smiling up at his fukutaichou, Hitsugaya grabbed her hips and flipped them both over, nudging himself between her legs. Matsumoto gasped, then grinned back up at him.

"Honeymoon too far away for ya, Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuun?"

Lowering his head, he nodded, grinning savagely against her neck.

"Yeah."

He'd tell her he loved her later. Now, though, he'd show her 'till she passed out and never doubted it again.

**EPILOGUE**

"Toushi-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun? Remember our promise? Huh, huh, remember?"

"Eh, *yakisoku*?"

"Yeah! The one where, *pss, pss, psss* whisper whisper *wink*"

(blushes deep red)

"Ahhh, THAT promise..."

"Mmm-hmmm..."

"I-I love you, Matsumoto."

"Awwwww!"

"A-And I... wanna..."

_T-Toushiro...? Toushirou, it's really you! I've missed you so much, and MY how you've aged!_

"GRANDMA!"

Matsumoto smiled and left her husband to settle his ties with Granny. It had been over ten decades, and he'd still not forgotten her and the promise they'd made.

She'd claim him as hers once again as the night began.

A/N: Granny was the promise, not the affection all a woman could have. ^^ Kinda mushy, but a bit nice- after all, the approval of one you love(d) for the one you chose to love means every bit as much to you as your loved one's approval of the one who raised you. ^/^ Kapeesh?

Love your guys' input, that's an invitation to criticize! ^^


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